1.
Problem of universe is a step into the unknown. Imagination works where Nature is the medium. Between mind and reality it builds a bridge.

2.
Mind compresses and focuses on a specific problem at any time; memory of a smell rides piggyback on Now to the past.
When we look at past with rose-tinted glass we are less harsh as from a wider experience in life; mind can focus only one idea at a time.

3.
Nothing new under the sun; a free-masonry of ideas at the unconscious end and you fit idea rationally to time-space. Mind is a state of awareness.
Here is one to round this post off. Positive intelligence permeates everything from Time-Space framework. If in imagination I make an image and call it God how can you prove me wrong? It merely bridges through evidences I glean in nature. God being Time and Space (Eternal God and Omnipresent) does not need imagination whereas I would need it to serve any given purpose on hand.
Mind as I defined is an awareness and it is called Cosmic Mind. Thus Nebuchadnezzar may dream and Daniel can interpret it to him because the medium is common. The unconscious part of the human brain is the seat of will. We follow our desires and will, and find reasons to justify our actions rationally. In the post of Number Game I mentioned the extra-ordinary way in which late Srinivasa Ramanujan wrote down mathematical functions that came to him in dreams before his death. You find what you seek. His knock on the door of mathematical problems was heard. That is all.
How do we limit our life experience to insignificant level when we dismiss what our conscious mind cannot digest! Instead we should use both parts of our brain to get the best out of life.

In my previous post Unequal Partnerships I mentioned how multiculturalism failed us. How can it not fail us since our very mind is shot through the Unconscious and Conscious Mind?
Think of human civilization as a structure. At the base we have the brain which is evolving still. When our ape ancestor parted from ape cousins it was not perfect,- and in evolutionary timescale 2.5 million years is not adequate. We became more adept that is all. Our short attention span and optimism etc; are still worrying points.
We have a window to look at how we were at the dawn of time. The fossil skull of ‘Taung child’ reveals a soft skull with larger cranial space for brain development. 2.5 million year old specimen also hints at a possibility that man would have set out on the strength of his bipedalism. At the same time ape specimens of the same period and man share a common characteristic: both could climb trees. Man’s dexterity for tools decided his decision to separate and go his own way. Rational decision it was since weighing two abilities his tool making capacity outweighed the advantage of climbing trees. Thus he opted for the plains than an arboreal existence.
He would at every turn allow his innovative skills to determine the next course. If foraging at all weathers was inconvenient he would settle down to farm. But Agriculture limited the marine food rich in nutrient he could exploit. Only drawback was that consequences of his many innovation woud have spread far while the innovation addressed only the specific need. All these while his brain was still evolving. His toolmaking was only one symptom of intelligence.
Human civilization as I said at the outset was based on his evolving mind and collective experience. Whether he learned to restructure his society or build up a belief-system it had to be on the collective experience of mankind.
ii
If man would coin an idea ‘Deutscheland uber alles’ or God of Vengeance both were carved out of a mind imperfect. Hitler drew the German nation to come behind his banner with the promise of avenging the national shame. These rallies were orchestrated with music and pageantry, same as with the same religious fervor that the flagellants would walk on their knees, punishing their bodies with flail. These are all manifestations from the same source: the same dark regions of his subconscious translating from the collective experience of mankind. Only his rational mind would make doctrines, observances and recitations etc., Such rank tomfoolery would go on multiplying endlessly.
The State cannot escape it anymore than religion. Multiculturalism is our knock-kneed mind in sunday clothes.

Animism came before religion. Our human ancestors considered all objects are endowed with spirit. Trees, rivers, birds etc., Do we not follow the animism even now? When I am party to a contract how do I legalize it? My signature stands for me. Pure animism in modern clothes. When mass is elevated according to Catholic theology the bread is transformed into the body of Christ. Religion is rooted in Animism.
With such a mind that can trip us at every turn multiculturalism will continue to show surprises. So the watchword is Expect the Unexpected.
benny

Socrates never claimed to have wisdom but he sought it very keenly. Because he walked about the streets of Athens talking to any one who cared to look for truth was a likely figure of fun. His ungainly figure and simplicity did not strike a casual observer as anything worthwhile. The fact that he never seemed to have visible means of support other than a virago of a wife made him a convenient target for comic poets of his time. Aristophanes who knew Socrates used him in his play The Clouds ( 423 B.C) to represent the new breed of philosophers who doubted the traditional teachings of poets. Unlike the ‘ Socrates’ in the play Socrates did not teach for money. Despite many differences between the real and that of the play the public came to confuse the two.
When the play was staged Socrates was present one evening along with his friends. After the play there was a cry, Socrates, Socrates!. The playgoers went on chanting his name. Socrates was about to get up but Alcibiades advised him not to. The elder said that he saw among those who called out a few who were seekers of truth as he.
“They may be full of Aristophanes now. Here is their opportunity to compare the false with the original.” With that he stood up for all spectators to see.
Twenty four years later when he stood before the court of 501 Athenians he could not convince them that he was not that dishonest and irreverent creature whom they had seen in a comic play.
From whence arises such confusion? The Athenians knew a play from the man. One is a make-believe and the other is real flesh and blood. Even so those who tried him had a problem. Their unconscious mind knew unconsciously,- instinct you call it, as long he lived their position to control the mind of the public was shaky. Here the philosopher was teaching the young never to take anything for granted.’ Question the powers- that-be what makes them curb civil liberties? Under what authority?’These were dangerous times and whoever set man to think was stepping into the unknown. The Establishment feared the unpredictable.
In the mind of the Aristocratic party that wanted war and chaos to keep their position secure, Socrates was the enemy of state. The trial was as they decided already in mind. Unconscious mind the Will made it a necessity to silence Socrates. Only the conscious part of the judges had to supply reason. Thus legally Socrates was found guilty. How can anyone convince another who has unconsciously made up mind to follow his own course? You have to offer him things that he value more than following his own voice. Wordsworth the poet rejected the revolutionary ardor of his youth and became part of the Establishment. Robert Browning’s poem describes it well( see below: The Lost Leader)
Some change and some don’t. Socrates could not change from what he believed as right.The Lost Leader
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!(excerpt)
benny

The unconscious mind (often simply called the unconscious) is all the processes of the mind which are not available to consciousness. The term unconscious mind was coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The concept gained prominence due to the influence of Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. The unconscious mind can be seen as the source of dreams and automatic thoughts. (Wikipedia)

Some actions – like moving a finger – are initiated and processed unconsciously at first, and only after enter consciousness.

Philosopher Walter Jackson Freeman III writes “our intentional actions continually flow into the world, changing the world and the relations of our bodies to it. This dynamic system is the self in each of us, it is the agency in charge, not our awareness, which is constantly trying to keep up with what we do.*” To Freeman, the power of intention and action can be independent of awareness. ( * Freeman, Walter J. How Brains Make Up Their Minds. New York: Columbia UP, 2000. Page 139.)

We think and act rationally but do we understand what it implies? One who wants to kick the habit of smoking may linger on wondering when or how to do it. He knows it is slowly incinerating his lungs and one day he quits it altogether. Suppose the coming weekend he is in company and they are headed towards a bar. If he chooses to sit with them in the smoking section he may excuse himself that he did not want to cut their pleasure of a smoke. Or was it he was craving a secondary smoke and his mind had tricked him? Our mind is a divided house. We may say we keep an open house. Only that when we want to empty our bowels we keep the door shut. Open house in short is not always what it says. Our mind is not what we like to believe. We say we are rational. Are we really? How come then we irrationally succumb to prophets and dolts alike. We accept heaven for someone else’s word. Similarly we listen to some fool’s prattle and when he says,’such and such race is subhuman’ we accept it without a murmur. It happened in Nazi Germany. Or a half-baked science fiction writer cobbles up Scientology ‘weird evil cult’ as Rupert Murdoch said the other day) celebrities are ready to join. Our rational mind knows it is a moron’s path to bliss as one who take bath salts for kicks. The nature of mind is such that people are dying to believe and ‘weirder the better.’ There has never been a proof of religion as consistently put to test and found true. Yet why people still harp on it? Our brain is a divided house.
‘I can make Donald Duck pass for a Deity and have churches built for worship. If so why don’t I do it? The trouble is I may in the end come to believe myself in the joke.‘ I consider that as truly tragic.
PS Philosopher Schopenhauer signified this unconscious part of mind as the Will. We seek pleasures from within ourselves and even if these are less honorable we still pursue it. Then we rationally explain our actions. We are not seeking a course because reasons are already existing outside ourselves.
benny

Color of Religion
Is there a color to code religion as founded by a prophet and organized by his disciples?
The purity of a vision seen from the unconscious mind has to be translated by the rational mind. Prophet can only approximate rationally what is revealed in the other. To compound the confusion it has to dictated to one. From there how a prophet’s teachings are translated by his scribe or faithfuls into an order is anybody’s guess. It is neither white nor is it black but gray.
Of this I had touched upon in the concluding part of the Silk Road and Via Appia.

Mexican Americans who are living in the south-western border states of America may be citizens of the U.S.A but they trace their origins to Mexico; pattern of belief-systems as it is impressed in them goes still deeper. The Roman Catholic beliefs were imposed on the New World by force and coercion some 500 years ago; These serve now as the basic religion in Mexico. It did not mean that the Mexicans could not work from within. The result is obvious.The policy of the Church in the sixties was to Americanize these people. But it was not much of a success. The Church found that whenever the priests offered masses in other than Spanish the flock tended to go to other churches where Masses were in Spanish.
In Haiti the Church was first associated with the Francophile elite, and which by 1940’s became identified with African values. Naturally a reconciliation with voodoo was inevitable. The Masses are now sung in Creole accompanied by voodoo drums. Devotion of the celebrants see no distinction between the Christian, Indian or African spirits which are merely lubricants that smoothen their daily grind of living. No Church can hope to establish dogmas per se and expect it to be held pure. It is people who give its vitality to beliefs and in the process it is transmuted into something unforeseen by the founder of the Religion himself.
Fools stone nevertheless some because of blasphemy or impiety. Or it may be for breaking the oath. In some cases these fools burn with lot of mumbo jumbo attached to it. Grand Inquisitor and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem alike can rest. If we pee on the clod of the earth neither will know the difference. They have become one with earth where no infidels or believers, arami or kaffirs exist. The peace that they feel can only matched by worms that specialize on dead bodies.
benny